
MOGWAI
The Bad Fire (Rock Action)
Mogwai’s 11th album, and the first since As The Love Continues made them unlikely chart-toppers in 2021, both pushes things forwards and showcases what they’ve always done best. On the one hand, lead track God Gets You Back is constructed from a chiming synth pattern and Fanzine Made Of Flesh finds the Glaswegians coming closer to conventional indie rock than ever before, while elsewhere Stuart Braithwaite fully indulges his love of My Bloody Valentine’s weightless fuzz on 18 Volcanoes and even garnishes rager Lion Rumpus with a solo.
But on the other hand, Hi Chaos is – as the name implies – like greeting a familiar friend, its white-heat passages certain to make for a transcendental live experience, and their status as masters of the slow-build-and-stomp-on-the-distortion-pedal is further sealed by If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some Of The Others. Let’s face it: a world with Mogwai in it can’t be all bad.
words BEN WOOLHEAD